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Reconsider bans on blood, tissue donation

Sheryl Moore wants the law changed so gay men can donate their eyes along with other organs at death.
Des Moines Register

Press-Citizen Editorial Board
9:29 a.m. CDT August 22, 2014

Sheryl Moore learned recently that the eyes of her late son, A.J. Betts, could not be used in the donor program because he was gay. Moore, shown here Thursday, believes this is an antiquated rule and hopes to get it changed.
(Photo:
Mary Willie / The Register
)

It's the policy that prohibits men — if they have had sex with another man, even once, since 1977 — from ever being able to donate blood.

And we've editorialized for years that it's a policy that is long past time for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reconsider.

But it wasn't until reading through Daniel Finney's story about Sheryl Moore that we realized how such a discriminatory ban also extends to the donation of life-improving (as opposed to life-saving) tissues and organs.

After her 16-year-old son, A.J. Betts, took his own life in July 2013, Moore took some solace in how her son's organs were being used to prolong the lives of so many people:

• One kidney went to a 49-year-old woman and the other went to 11-year-old fifth-grader.

• His liver went to a married man with a child.

• His lungs went to a 60-year-old grandfather.

• And his heart went to a 14-year-old boy.

But Moore was incensed to learn that the Federal Drug Agency had prohibitions against the donation of life-improving tissue — such as bone, tendons and corneas — from sexually active gay men. Because Moore couldn't confirm her son's sexual history, no one else would be given the opportunity to see the world through his eyes.

Moore was especially hurt because she believes her son decided to end his life, in part, because of the barrage of high school bullying he received because of his race and sexual orientation.

"This is an archaic regulation, and it's completely discriminatory," she told The Des Moines Register. "I never planned on becoming a gay rights activist, but I guess I am now."

The purpose of the restriction is to reduce the risk of spreading Hepatitis or HIV — which data from the Centers for Disease Controls show occur at a more infection frequent rate among gay men than in the rest of the population. And unlike with the ban on blood donation — which is permanent — the ban on donating life-improving tissues is limited to men who have had sex with another man within the past five years.

The time has come for the FDA to reconsider all such bans. The ban on donating blood, for example, was put into place in 1983 — at the height of the HIV scare and at a time when there was no reliable screening technology to test donated blood for HIV.

Much has changed in the past three decades. Technology is more advanced, and the screening techniques are much more accurate. Today donated blood must undergo two different, highly accurate tests that make the risk of tainted blood entering the blood supply virtually zero.

That's why, for nearly a decade, the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers and the American Association of Blood Banks have been arguing that the ban "is medically and scientifically unwarranted." And that's why groups such as the American Medical Association support modifying the restriction.

The FDA, of course, is right to implement specific, limited blackout periods in which people cannot donate for a variety of reasons — such as after visiting disease-prone areas of the world or after engaging in unprotected sex.

But FDA policy permanently bans sexually active gay men from ever donating blood. No matter how diligent a gay man has been about practicing safe sex, no matter how long he has been in a monogamous relationship, no matter how many screenings show his blood to be healthy and uncontaminated, he is not allowed to donate — ever.

And that permanent ban on all gay men makes little sense when compared with how FDA blood donation policies place only a one-year restriction on heterosexual men after having sex with a female prostitute.

We've said before that, with a national blood shortage, it's time the FDA removed the automatic ban on gay men who wish to do their part and donate blood. The agency, of course, can continue the ban for people — gay or straight — who are at risk of contamination through their travel history or their recent risky sexual behavior. And the FDA also should reconsider the efficacy of bans like the one that added a final insult to A.J. Betts' death.

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